Fashion is everywhere

Since you guys always give the best advice I’m hoping you can help me out. Again.

See these realtor’s photos of our living room from a year ago? I would love to do exact befores and afters much like I did of our old house here, here and here. The problem is that the photographer shot these with a wide angle lens and there’s no way I can replicate that with what I currently have lens wise.

Any advice on an affordable wide angle lens for a Canon DSLR? Affordable kind of being the operative word.

Back in the UK I was an estate agent and I used what we called a ‘fish eye’ lens on our cameras which was fabulous.
Sadly I can’t remember the brand BUT.. do be careful of wide angle lenses Benita because they fiddled with ours, bought new, supposedly better ones and they were dreadful. On top of which I see terrible distorted photos on property sites all the time, that have obviously been taken with a certain type of lens.
Can you not just get the same one as you estate agent ?? or is it a horribly expensive one ?
Jo xx

I’m a nikon girl but i think you have to go for a 18mm. A zoom or maybe a prime lens and try it second hand. And if you only need it for occasionally interior shots maybe someone around can lend it to you?
I know the problem; shouting only with 50mm.
Bye, Pauline

Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6
Though it distorts the objects which are closer to the right and left edges of the photo. This is something I like but if you do not prefer it, you might have to go for a more expensive lens or the one Tokina has, 12-24mm I guess.
I actually wanted to buy that Sigma for myself as well but I couldn’t afford it before going to Rome so I might wait for another trip I think :/

I will definitely check second hand and I’ve considered renting one for a weekend but that turned out quite expensive and I’d have to do it all at once. I was hoping I could do it little by little when I have them time.

Sigma 10-20mm could be distorting the objects that are closer to the lens, I’m not sure how it works… But this lens was recommended by a friend, he also owns a few lenses, cares about his pocket but also takes great shots as well.. http://www.korayalkan.com for his work

Hi Benita 🙂 I’d recommend the 28mm 1.8 as far as a wide angle lens. If you buy it new it’s about 500 USD so not exactly cheap, but often you can rent them for the weekend for much much less (here for the weekend they often only charge the one day rate). Not sure if you have rental shops there though. I have the 28mm because itcame in handy when I shot weddings in tight spaces but mostly do portrait work now so I stick with the 85mm and 50mm. If you ever need sample shots as examples let me know and I’d be happy to help!

I think you what you need is at least 18mm. I did several semi-professional shoots of interior and always used my 18-70 Nikon lens. I guess if you squeeze yourself in the corner, use a tripod, then you could take such pictures as you posted with that 18 mm lens. But I sometimes wish I had a more wide angle lens and I am looking myself for a cheap alternative too (just for Nikon). I think fish eye (which is like 8-10 or so?!) is too much, but if you get something like 10-20 or 12-24 that would definitely work.
Love your blog 🙂
stef

I’ve had the Sigma 10-20mm for a while now and although it does distort a little, nothing you can’t work on in Photoshop. I still haven’t done much indoor shooting with mine – no inspiration for such so I can’t comment much on how it performs for shoots like these in general. I’d say it’s pretty good, and definitely fits a lot on 🙂 I definitely recommend something like that for shoots like this, and can’t wait to see the results!

Hi Benita! My boyfriend uses a Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 wideangle lens on his Canon DSLR, he is very happy with it because he uses it for architecture interiors and he gets very very little distortion on the edges. I can’t remeber the price but he was very happy with the price/quality relation.
I would avoid fisheye lens for the kind of pictures you need, we bought it recently and it’s more for playing and making strange pictures 🙂
Marta

hi benita, i also use the sigma 10-20 mm f/4-5.6 on a canon 20d. i think i paid around $400 for it five years ago. i use this lens all the time, especially for landscapes. like a previous poster mentioned, there is a little bit of distortion, depending how close the objects are to the bottom corners, but it’s not too bad. at this price for a wide angle, i can’t complain. i’ve been quite happy with it.

I use the Tokina 12-24mm f/4 for architectural interiors and I’ve been very happy with it although it is not really pro quality – there is some distortion and chromatic aberration (color fringing) both of which can be fixed in Photoshop. I love it for landscapes too. It was around $500 new, 5 years ago. They have since come out with a newer model. If price is an issue I would definitely consider a used copy. Mine has stood up to all kinds of abuse with no sign of failure.
The kit lens that comes with Canon DSLRs is 18mm at the wide end, which is fairly wide… and that lens is much more affordable.

Benita, check out the second hand market, you can pick up good lenses much more affordably. There are quite a few second hand lenses for sale on Ebay at any one time so I’m sure you will find one of the lenses recommended by others here.

My wife is an avid fan, and suggested I check out this post. The first thing I would suggest is contacting a local pro and asking them to do it for you in return for a mention in a post – with your readership they should consider it!
I’m not sure what lenses you currently have, but you will often find that non-DSLR camera are wider than standard DSLR lenses. Something to consider – maybe you can just use a P&S which goes down to 12mm. GX200 is a decent example, if you’re looking.
The other thing I would consider is photo-stitching, for example http://www.kenrockwell.com/canon/photostitch.htm
You can take a bunch of images, and merge them together. The photos don’t have to be beside each other – they can be above and below, so you can get the floor near your feet.
If you need a hand with stitching, let me know. I would be happy for you to dropbox me the raw files, and I will send them back to you stitched together.

Hi Benita,
I had a quick chat with my partner who is into photography and also uses the Tokina 11-16mm. He recommends some reading in the interwebs:
There is a reliable test that compares several wide angle leses by someone who is a pro tester and also into interior photography: http://kurtmunger.com/tokina_11_16mm_f_2_8id286.html
This test recommends the sigma 10-20 for quality-price relation, althought its light gathering capability is not the best.
If you look for a lens with a decent light gathering capability (low minimum F-Stop) Sigma 8-16mm would also be an option (it is more expensive than the others). There is also a test of Canon users debating the different lenses on Canon: http://www.dslr-forum.de/showthread.php?t=718071
If you need more tests, let me know, we are happy to support you!

well, you’ve had lots of wonderful replies! we just got a Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM for just this reason, shooting rooms is so difficult otherwise. have a good search, there are good prices to be found. x

Not sure if you know this, but you can rent really nice wide angle lenses fairly cheaply. That way, you could photograph your rooms and in the process see if you want to invest in one. Nicole at Making It Lovely did that for her son’s nursery, I don’t remember the company she used.

Photojojo sells a few SLR lens adapters, including a wide-angle/macro version. I have no idea how well it actually works, but they do show a few with and without comparisons. It is significantly cheaper than buying an actual lens. I’m not sure if they ship internationally, but I am sure you could find a website that does. Or feel free to e-mail customer service, they are very nice and would probably help you find someone who carries it who does ship to Sweden.http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/wide-angle-macro-lens/

Benita, I’m with Melissa. I also purchased a 10 USD ‘fish eye’ attachment and have played with it to see if I want to spend more money on a macro lens later. You can find them on Amazon. It’s worth a try for the first step.

Most of the suggestions above seem quite adequate and I would only like to add that with digital SLR’s, unless they are 5d and up, because of the smaller sensor dimensions you get less wide angle range than the actual reading on the lens. For instance the 35mm works alomost like a 50mm. That’s why you probably can’t work with the ones from your kit. So, before you buy something else make sure you know what the “real range” is for your camera.

If you do a search on amazon.com with your camera model and “wide angle lens” it turns up all kind of options, some seem so cheap to be bordering gimmicky attachments but there are some under $20 with great reviews. Good luck 🙂

This may be showing my ignorance about what is available in Sweden, but if you or a friend has an iPhone, there are wide angles lenses available for the phones at a very reasonable price. The quality may not be the best, but there’s always PhotoShop and iPhoto to spruce it up! This is if you don’t want to make a huge investment and want to use it just for special shots. Please fill me in (anyone) if I am not correct about this. Thanks!

Hi Benita, Sophia above mentioned this and it is really important! First you have to find out the crop factor of your camera. All lenses are still described as if working with a full frame sensor, but most of the current amateur DSLR’s have a much smaller chip than the old 35 mm film, which means that these old lens designations are not what you get when you have a digital DSLR.
Average crop factor for amateur DSLR is 1.5 which means that e.g. an 18 mm lens (like your kit lens) is actually a 37 mm lens, so not a really wide angle.
Even if it is expensive, maybe it would be wise to rent before you buy in order to get the effect you want!

I remember that back home in Istanbul, my sister actually bought a second hand lens that a pro-photographer used and exchanged it for a newer version in the store. I’m not sure what the deal would be in Stockholm, but worth checking it out…

Hi Benita! I have the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS and love it. It’s not cheap but such a great lens. They call it the hidden “L” len for crop cameras. What’s great about it is that it’s made for crop cameras so it will give you those true wide angle settings. It’s totally worth investigating. You could probably even rent one to try it out.

I have no lens suggestions. But if you are impatient, just take a series of shots frolm left to right, overlapping, then layer them in your photo editing program and merge and flatten. That’s what I do with my point and shoot photos, using PhotoShop.

I know a couple of people who’ve found some great used lenses on Craigslist — I know Sweden has its version — often even professionals will sell lenses they’re offloading b/c of platform changes, or they simply got a new one. Could be well worth the looksee to see if a short trip near your home would result in a good find.